Tragedy as girl found dead after filming TV series

The screening of a new reality TV series will be delayed "out of respect" for a teenage participant who was found dead just two weeks before it was due to air.

Carina Stephenson, 17, from Branton, near Doncaster, had spent four months last year filming The Colony in Australia for The History Channel.

Her body was found on Saturday in woods near her home, two days after she went missing. Police are not treating her death as suspicious but are awaiting for the results of a post mortem examination to establish the cause of death.

The fly-on-the-wall series aimed to show how modern day families would have coped as settlers at the turn of the 19th Century.

Carina, had been joined by her 13-year-old brother and parents John, 43, and mother Liz, 38, for the living history documentary in the Australian Outback.

The Stephensons beat off fierce competition from hundreds of other families to be selected for the show, which involved working farmland without modern equipment and surviving on meagre rations.

The History Channel had been due to screen the six-part series on June 6, but producers have decided to postpone the transmission until September after talking with the teenager's devastated family.

A spokeswoman for the channel told the Press Association: "The History Channel has decided to delay its transmission of The Colony following the tragic death of Carina Stephenson, a participant in the series."

"After consultation with the Stephenson family and out of respect for Carina and her family in this very difficult period, we have decided to postpone the series until September 2005."

The programme has already been shown in Australia and is currently being screened on Irish channel RTE, which part-financed the programme.

The History Channel yesterday rejected any claims that the show itself could have led to the teenager's apparent suicide.

"The whole family came back from Australia nearly six months ago and were very positive about the experience.

"They had been living the life of a convict family, along with families from Ireland and Australia, and were given a certain amount of provisions to live on.

"If there had been any upset or distress they could have left and gone home at any point. It's not Big Brother," the spokeswoman said.

Carina spent much of her time on internet chatrooms after returning home from Australia, five months ago.

The teenager, who had recently revealed she was a lesbian, had appeared "happy and normal" in the days before her death, according to her family.

She vanished from her home on Thursday morning to go for a BMX ride and was reported missing later the same day.

Police search teams found her body close to her home at 4pm on Saturday.